Tuesday, January 02, 2018

Purity requires modesty...some of our clerics have forgotten this!

At Fatima (1917), Our Lady said that, "Certain fashions will be introduced that will offend Our Lord very much." Sadly, such fashions may be found even in Catholic parishes. This is the direct result of a lack of reverence before sacred mysteries. Dietrich von Hildebrand explains that, "..lack of reverence may have two roots...the first is to be found in pride. The man who lacks reverence because of pride and arrogance approaches everything with conceit and presumption, imagines that he knows everything, that he sees through everything....The world holds no mystery for him. He treats everything tactlessly, with easy familiarity...There is..another form of irreverence, one which is born of concupiscence. The concupiscent man is interested in the world only as a means of procuring pleasure for himself...

The lack of reverence is a specific defect of our age. On the one hand, the feeling of reverence is undermined by the increasing technicalization and instrumentalization of the world wherein everything is considered only as a means for the attainment of practical aims, and being is not allowed to be taken seriously. On the other hand, the attitude of self-glorification is increased in man by progress in the knowledge of secondary causes and by the conquest of the physical world. This makes us forget that 'He has made us and we have not made ourselves.' It makes the shortsighted intoxicated with superficial knowledge so that they overlook the causa prima because of the causae secundae" (Liturgy and Personality, pp. 49, 51-52).

How important is modesty? Saint John Chrysostom warned the immodest that:

"You carry your snare everywhere and spread your nets in all places. You allege that you never invited others to sin. You did not, indeed, by your words, but you have done so by your dress and your deportment, and much more effectively than you could by your voice. When you have made another sin in his heart, how can you be innocent? Tell me, whom does this world condemn? Whom do judges in court punish? Those who drink poison or those who prepare it and administer the fatal potion? You have prepared the abominable cup, you have given the death-dealing drink, and you are more criminal than are those who poison the body; you murder not the body, but the soul. And it is not to enemies that you do this, nor are you urged on by any imaginary necessity, nor provoked by injury, but out of foolish vanity and pride."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that, "Purity requires modesty, an integral part of temperance. Modesty protects the intimate center of the person. It means refusing to unveil what should remain hidden. It is ordered to chastity to whose sensitivity it bears witness." (2521). And, "..modesty exists as an intuition of the spiritual dignity proper to man. It is born with the awakening consciousness of being a subject. Teaching modesty to children and adolescents means awakening in them respect for the human person." (2524).

Bearing this in mind, what must we think about the "Catholic" Youth Festival which was recently held in Australia? See here.

5 comments:

Cyn M
said...

How it must grieve our Lady to see young women in such revealing clothing, and at religious event. :( Even at mass the girls and women are wearing revealing clothing, and most of our clergy is silent. Sad.

Padre Pio wouldn't tolerate low-necked dresses or short, tight skirts, and he forbade his spiritual daughters to wear transparent stockings. Each year his severity increased. He stubbornly dismissed them from his confessional, even before they set foot inside, if he judged them to be improperly dressed. On some mornings he drove away one after another, until he ended up hearing very few confessions. His brothers observed these drastic purges with a certain uneasiness and decided to fasten a sign on the church door; ￼￼ ￼ ￼￼"By Padre Pio's explicit wish, women must enter the confessional wearing skirts AT LEAST 8 INCHES BELOW THE KNEE. IT IS FORBIDDEN TO BRING SHORTER DRESSES IN CHURCH AND TO WEAR THEM TO CONFESSION."

It looks more like the dance of Salome, beautiful young woman, but inappropriately attired and dance for a religious event. I cannot even imagine this with clergy present. Many people do not understand nor consider modesty any longer, and the criticism of this will be rejected out of hand. I see young women and older women in church with tight clothing, revealing cleavage and rear ends. As usual the clergy are silent, lest they be considered old fashioned or prudish. Everyone fears criticism, and our churches are now run with popular consensus in mind, at all costs avoiding anything negative. We are a fearful church, apparently with priests shivering from the thought of Bishop hearing a criticism. It's impossible to run a Church or a faith or a culture this way. The Church will have less and less impact as it retreats full bore from encouraging anything resembling Christian morality and virtues. The people are more and more lost as the vulgar culture influences them, and they grow farther and farther from a spirit of proper discernment.

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About Me

Born in Bitburg, Germany,
Paul Melanson is a Catholic lay-philosopher and apologist whose work has appeared in many publications and websites including The Union Leader, The Wanderer, Seattle Catholic, Newsblaze, Helium, and Amazines. He has been interviewed by The National Catholic Register, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the television newsmagazine Chronicle.